The PMA Blog

Well, we just finished teaching a bunch of Working Sm@rt + Teams classes over the last four months, and while I'm a little tired of explaining the difference between Teams, a team, a chat, and a channel (really Microsoft???), I'm more jazzed than ever about this tool and the potential productivity gains when people use it well!

As more and more of us are working from home or a hybrid model, keeping in touch and working together as a team has become a top priority. Enter Microsoft Teams - a tool that makes it super easy to stay connected, organized, and on top of your game. Let's dive into some of the amazing benefits MS Teams has to offer for all your project work needs.

I've seen a multitude of blogs and articles citing the stat that the average duration of a new year’s resolution is 19 days.  The gist of most of them is to take the stat as a sign that resolutions are a waste of your time.  I disagree.  I think if you make a list of the most successful people you know and compared them to everyone else, you would find one critical difference.  Follow-through.

The votes are in for 2019 most popular blog! This blog is full of tips for taking your work relationships to a new level of success. Be sure to take advantage of the download "Know Your Colleagues"!  

I was coaching a client last week and asked about his progress since he went to our WorkingSm@rt class.   He said, "Well, I'm more organized and more focused but I haven't solved the one issue that takes up more time than almost anything else -- the people stuff!”.

I knew he was saying it tongue in cheek, but he winced a little as he said it and I knew there was more truth there than he was comfortable with.  I wish I could say it was the first time I've heard this complaint, but it's not.  It's impossible to focus on people's productivity without consistently running into the challenging people issues that can take up significant chunks of our day.

 So, without ado, I thought I’d outline three people areas that waste significant time in our workplaces with a few solutions that can make a significant impact:

It happens all the time.  Two people are using a word and believe they are aligned on its definition, but their different interpretations lead to big misses in execution.  When this happens with a common word like coaching, the results fall short and leave people scratching their head.  I was recently in New York teaching a Coaching for Peak Performance class with a group of front-line managers.

Automate your repetitive processes.

Identifying all repetitive tasks in a process is a great way to quickly surface opportunities for automation.

Consider templates, checklists and rules in Outlook, Gmail, OneNote, Keep and other applications as a non-programmers option for automating. With increases in communications, an automated process for client contacts can save a team a bunch of time. Scheduling applications like Fullslate, AppointmentPlus, Acuity, TimeTap and Bookings (free in MS 365) can save everyone on the team countless hours playing phone tag and emailing people with new appointment options when you work with external clients or vendors whose schedules you can't see.

I was coaching a client last week and asked about his progress since he went to our WorkingSm@rt class.   He said, "Well, I'm more organized and more focused but I haven't solved the one issue that takes up more time than almost anything else -- the people stuff!”.

I knew he was saying it tongue in cheek, but he winced a little as he said it and I knew there was more truth there than he was comfortable with.  I wish I could say it was the first time I've heard this complaint, but it's not.  It's impossible to focus on people's productivity without consistently running into the challenging people issues that can take up significant chunks of our day.

 So, without ado, I thought I’d outline three people areas that waste significant time in our workplaces with a few solutions that can make a significant impact: